How to “Roast” a Chicken – 25 min “Roast” Chicken Recipe in a Pressure Cooker

I love roast chicken. The crispy skin, tender flesh, and delicious root vegetables… It’s definitely a delicious meal that yields plenty of leftovers and it’s an easy transition to make homemade chicken stock at just about the same time.

“I want there to be no peasant in my kingdom so poor that he cannot have a chicken in his pot every Sunday.” -Henry IV

Sounds like a perfect meal, right? Almost.

My favorite pressure cooker roast chicken recipe

The trouble with roasting or baking a whole chicken is that it takes a bit of time. Now sometimes that’s alright and part of the fun is the longer time in the kitchen preparing a big weekend meal with your family, but sometimes it would be nice to speed things up, and that’s where the pressure cooker comes in.

How to “roast” a chicken in the pressure cooker

I did a little bit of research, looking for recipes on how to cook a whole chicken, and it seemed pretty straightforward: as long as your chicken doesn’t touch the sides or top of the pressure cooker (with the small stand and platform in place), you can cook it whole. We tested the sizes and found that our 8-quart Fagor pressure cooker was able hold a 3.5-pound bird, on the rack, with little trouble.

Originally we found two similar recipes, one on Food.com and the other on Miss Vickie’s website. Both calling for 25 minutes cook time, so that is what we did. The chicken came out very flavorful and moist (I mean really flavorful and moist), but just a little too tough.

Based on their timing, we decided to try it again. This time our whole 3-pound chicken was cooked for 18 minutes. And this time it came out perfectly. 6 minutes per pound seemed to be our magic number.

Step 1: Season and Brown

Take the fully defrosted and rinsed chicken and liberally coat the skin with spices and seasonings. Heat the olive oil in the pressure cooker, and carefully brown the top, sides, and bottom of the chicken.

Step 2: Degalze and add metal stand

Now remove the whole chicken and deglaze the bottom of the pressure cooker with a spatula after adding the water or broth. There shouldn’t be much oil in the pan, but you may want to let it cool for a minute or two to lesson the risk of a little too much steam or splashing. Now put in place the little metal stand and the metal platform.

Place a metal stand and platform in the pressure cooker

Step 3: Cook

How long to cook the chicken?

We found great results when we cooked a whole chicken for 6 minutes per pound. We then used the quick release method to equalize the pressure cooker.

Note: There seems to be some conflicting ideas on exactly which release method to use. Several authors like Miss Vickie and online recipes like ieatmostlymeat.com (great site) list the natural release method, while others like the cook book direct from one of our pressure cooker manufacturers as well as highly reviewed recipes like this one on Food.com cite the quick release. We understand the science and how the meat should be affected but so far both seem to produce great results. Our next chicken will be natural released to triple check the lack of a meaningful difference.

While the chicken is cooking, chop and cook your favorite vegetables. We like an assortment of root veggies: carrots, potatoes, beets, turnips, and a little celery for extra kick.

Step 4: Open and crisp if you would like

When you open the pressure cooker you’ll see beautiful juices that can be thickened and used to make chicken gravy.

Optional: If you want crispy skin you’ll have to take the cooked chicken, baste it with just a little butter or oil (and if you want – more spices), and oven roast for about 10 – 15 minutes at 400 degrees. It will already be cooked, and it won’t take long to simply crisp-up the skin. You can also add the cooked veggies to the roasting pan during this step too. We thoroughly enjoyed ours right out of the cooker.

Roast chicken recipe final result

Awesome, we were able to enjoy “roast” chicken on a weekday, without having to wait and eat until 10PM or trusting our old oven’s cooking-timer functions. (ok, it’s not that bad, but this chicken was fast and fantastic)

Step 5: Make stock with leftovers

Wait, hold on. Don’t throw away the bones. One of the best parts of pressure cooker chicken is the simplicity of going from “roast” chicken right into homemade chicken stock using all the juices and bones still in the cooker, and then if we want right into homemade soups like homemade chicken soup and a few days worth of lunches. :~)

Thanks for reading.

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate." ~Julia Child

Why learn pressure cooking?
It's 7 pm. The end of the work day stomach rumbles...

In one hand, a take out menu. In the other hand, the refrigerator door...its contents staring back almost as blankly as we are towards them. We want a homemade meal, but also want something quick and simple to make.
1. Simple and quick recipes requiring basic skills to become proficient in the kitchen.
2. Quality ingredients, not necessarily 100% organic, but meals without artificials and chemistry class additives.
3. To understand more of the story of our food and take small steps towards self-reliance.
It's true, there are many benefits to pressure cooking: the time savings, the taste, a small step towards self-reliance, sustainability... but the real benefit is in what we learn as we redefine our relationship with food. Good food can be fast. Good food can be easy.

I’ve just been pressure cooking for 2 months and already am a big fan! I cook a whole chicken once or twice a week but since we don’t eat the skin, I don’t brown it first in oil, I just season it well with an organic no-salt seasoner. I cook it on a trivet with 1 cup of chicken broth for 30 minutes (5 lb chicken) with natural release. I also lay a strong wide foil “band” on top of the trivet with long “handles” so I can easily lift the whole chicken from the pot after cooking. Next, I throw all the bones back in the pot, after removing the meat, along with a few sacrificial carrots, celery stalks and an onion — set the timer on high pressure for 80 minutes for the best broth EVER!! Strain, and put in fridge until the morning when I can remove the hardened fat from the top. Easy-peasy!

What a great idea to put the chicken into the oven to crisp up the skin. I haven roasted yet although I have used a pressure cooker for years. I just bought a new generation Fagor. Can’t wait to try the recipes using the rack. Love your site. I have a great pork recipe that I’ll type up and submit.

I’m cooking this right now!
I didn’t have a rack to put into the bottom of my pressure cooker, so I wadded up three balls of aluminum foil. I creep out about the possible aluminum poison dangers, but I figure those racks are made of aluminum anyway, right?
It smells so good right now, and I still have 13 min to go. Thanks!

I love my Fagor pressure cooker, but I can’t find anywhere on the Fagor site or Amazon anything about a rack! I see a canning rack and a dessert rack, but not just a plain one for roasting chicken. Where did you get yours? Looks like a great recipe!

This is a brine that you use for broasted chicken. I brine it 6 hours, dry it well and then I get the oven as hot as possible up at 550. Put the chicken in about 15 minutes to brown evenly. Then I place the chicken on a rack in my 8QT Fagor pressure cooker, add a tiny bit of water(1 cup or so) to the bottom of pot, put lid on and bring it up to pressure and let cook 12-15 minutes(12 min for a small chicken). Works great, the skin does not stay crispy but it is at least nice and dark and the chicken is flavored all the way through and falling off the bone tender. It actually tastes like KFC chicken without the crispy batter. The brine makes it stay moist and juicy.

Is that Josh Woodward playing in the background? Okay, the song is a bit dark, but I am getting ready to try out your recipe and I’ve got Morrisey moaning in the background and… I have the same exact Corelle set. Great for clumsy girls like myself. Lol.

I also don’t have a rack but what we found works really well is to cut a few onions in half and use them as the base and the chicken sits on top of them. Then they can either be eaten as is; my husband loves them like that. Or if you don’t like big lumps of onion, like me, use them in your stock.

Wow! This was surprisingly good! I made a simple gravy with the broth and served with pasta and brussels sprout. Thanks for sharing a great recipe. Now that I have the fundementals down, looking forward to getting more creative.

I have an Instant Pot, LUX60 model, and I tried this recipe/directions with a 5.75 lb chicken (I calculated cooking time at ~34 minutes based on 6 minutes per lb) and it came out overcooked. I bought two chickens at the same time so I will be repeating this exercise in a couple of weeks and will try a shorter cooking time, around 26 minutes.

Cooking with Pressure cookers not only speeds up your cooking process but also retains the nutritional value of the food you are cooking. I completely go by your blog on pressure cooking. For generations we have been using the Prestige Pressure cooker and the food comes out just perfect every time.

When you are cooking the chicken, do you also cook the vegetables in pressure cooker at the same time? Sorry if this is a dumb question. I have been cooking for my two boys and just bought the pressure cooker to help with meals.

Robert G. You would need to cook the chicken per these directions first and then cook the vegetables. If you try to do them at the same time, the vegetables will be too mushy. You could, however, cook the vegetables in the pressure cooker with the liquid while you crisp up the skin on your chicken in the oven for about 10 or 15 minutes.

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